Fragments
by CoffeeWench
Summary: All of Susan's abilities, mundane and otherworldly, never stop improving. She may just be good enough to make a real difference in a child's life. Throw in Fate and a certain Lady who shan't be named, and Susan's little idea will probably become a big adventure. She's only herself to blame, really.
1. Chapter 1

Last time, I explored boredom and curiosity. This time, I intend to explore something rather different. Always learning, me.

Casting about for the other anthropomorphic personifications. Going on slim source material. Sorry.

Everything related to the Discworld belongs to Terry Pratchett.

* * *

One could have heard the clatter of bone against paving stone had they been listening for it. If snow hadn't muffled the sound. And if the sound of robes flapping and tack jingling and a horse shifting uncomfortably hadn't masked it. And if the city ever really fell silent.

"You realize the Watch can trace the poker, don't you? I wonder if you've thought this through."

And if certain _dead people_ would ever shut the hell up.

IT WILL NOT BE TRACED.

"You're leaving a remarkably clear scent trail, don't you think? And no scent bomb to confuse it! The Watch werewolf won't have any trouble picking it up." The shade that stubbornly followed him from half a dimension over sounded sincerely concerned about this possibility. To be fair, the concern was probably about having a job well done. It was the principle of the thing; the consequences meant nothing to him. He was dead.

THERE WILL BE NOTHING TO FOLLOW.

"You sound so sure."

IT WOULD PROBABLY BE IN BAD TASTE TO SAY I WAS DEAD CERTAIN. Death, seven feet tall, skeletal, and more than just mildly irritated, dragged a corpse from the back of his pale horse. AS IT STANDS, HOWEVER, I AM.

He held the body mostly upright by its collar. A common iron household fire poker protruded from its chest; it went clear through, and whatever blood might have seeped out was hidden against the dusty blackness of the dead Assassin's clothing. The head, topped with pale curls, bobbled back and forth with every movement.

Death turned where he stood on the bank of the river Ankh and took the step that brought him to the brick ledge that kept the sober from tripping into the river by mistake. He reached up and yanked the poker from the corpse, making it sway and empty of blood rather faster than it had been doing. The snow-dusted bricks appeared to go black in places; the sun would render the red-on-white rather pretty in a few hours.

He extended his yard-long arm over the edge of the bank, letting the corpse's feet dangle and the blood drip. Then, with the air of a housewife putting the cat out of the house for the night, he let go.

The silence that followed was heavy, and, from half a dimension over, accusing.

I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE THROWN A BRICK FIRST, he mused.

A brick probably wouldn't have helped. An entire building still would have had to use a shovel to make it into the waters of the Ankh, semisolid even in times of flood. On Hogswatchnight, corpses _bounced._

* * *

"Where's the skelington?"

"And the creepy man?"

It took all of six seconds for Susan to go from a sort of horrified relief and pride that she'd defended her grandfather from a mad Assassin to exasperated that Death's getting her involved at all meant she'd have to answer questions like these.

In contrast, it took a little more than twenty minutes to explain to the little boy and little girl in her care that the 'skelington' was Death and that Susan had invited him to a very early Hogswatch breakfast. The children found the breakfast part much harder to understand than the invitation part.

"Wouldn't the bikkit – _biscuit_ – just go right through him?"

"Ooh, what if he'd had tea?"

"It'd look like he wet himself!"

"Tea wee!"

Normally, Susan discouraged this sort of playground one-upmanship, but as it took their thoughts off Death and the death she'd just brought about, she decided to let it go. It was Hogswatch, after all. A little later, Twyla explained that they'd found out that the Hogfather didn't really exist, and how. After commending them for accepting the change into a Young Lady and a Big Boy with such equanimity, Susan reminded them that they'd still receive presents each year.

Twyla's resilience to the revelation was summed up in the perfectly mercenary, "Mummy and Daddy never really know if we're naughty or nice."

* * *

"I think you broke my neck," complained the spirit of Jonathan Teatime. He was only minutes dead and had passed out of the realm of the living, but he was well on his way to pulling himself back through as a ghost. Death did not look forward to having _that _conversation with Susan. Teatime was likely to haunt _her_, since he'd died at her hands, and Susan would blame Death. His relationship with his granddaughter was strained enough as it was.

A courteous cough drew his attention. Both he and the faint shade of the dead Assassin turned to find themselves the subject of keen observation.

"Oh, my," Teatime's ghost said gleefully, "It _is_ Hogswatch, isn't it?"

Death ignored him to peer at the new arrivals with a mixture of habitual irritation and rising dread. WHAT DO YOU WANT? he asked, only barely polite.

The female smiled, though that smile never reached her eyes, which were green. They were green not in the way of irises and poetry, but emerald green from corner to corner, giving her face the eerie appearance of a mask – or would have, if her shape ever consented to be observable. It helped to think of ink dropped into water with brief flashes of modest curves and curling dark hair. It was in fact exactly nothing like this, but this sort of visual aid prevents a terrible case of the heebie jeebies.

The male of the duo nodded with a certain obligatory courtesy. His form was that of a middle-aged man, temples going just barely gray; though his expression was pleasant, he had the air about him of someone you didn't want to defy. _His_ eyes were like holes poked into reality and spangled with stars.

"We've begun a new game," he answered, gesturing vaguely at the lady beside him. "That one is a pawn." This time, he pointed at the ghost.

"We're arguing over possession," the lady added.

THE DEAD BELONG TO ME.

"Their _deaths_ belong to you," said the lady with a smile that wasn't unkind. "But once their afterlife is decided, they pass from your jurisdiction."

HE HAS MET HIS FATE, Death argued, glaring at the eponymous anthropomorphic personification. IT'S DONE.

As if to a recalcitrant child, Fate said, "You know it's not until I say so. He's got another role to play, now." He lifted his hands before him and clapped twice, and Death felt the edges of reality tear apart and ooze back together in a new pattern. "Come along," Fate ordered.

"That was uncomfortable," a tenor voice complained from the ice covering the Ankh. A rustle of cloth and the muffled sound of scrabbling on ice preceded the appearance of a young blond dressed in black and bearing a sunken hole where a left eye should be. Balancing on the edge brick that separated street from open air, Jonathan Teatime rolled his neck on his shoulders and patted just below his sternum.

"Just like new!" he chirped. Then he frowned, adding, "But for the clothes. And _this._" His left hand went up as if to cover the empty eye socket. He turned to Death and said in a voice that had worried several hundred lesser beings, "I must go back and get it. May I borrow that poker?"

Bone creaked around iron. CERTAINLY NOT. He wanted to add a threat about staying away from Susan, but he thought his tone conveyed the sentiment anyway.

"Come along," Fate repeated implacably.

And, as if attached to the newcomers by a string, Teatime went from the riverbank to Fate's side in a second.

The lady, whom those in the know referred to as the Lady, lifted what was probably a long index finger and tapped it against the side of where a nose should be if one had to guess. "Let's don't tell Susan," she suggested in a way that was not suggestion. "She'll manage like the rest do, without anymore unfair advantage than she already has." Fate turned, Teatime standing there beside him, looking mulish.

"Ta!" she tossed over her shoulder.

And Death – you know, _Death?_ Cloak, scythe, pale horse, granddaughter, End of Things That Lived and Many That Kind of Didn't? _**Death!**_ – was left standing on the edge of the Ankh, staring at angrily at snow on stone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Reposting in preparation for correcting a story that was not flowing well. I apologize for the mess.**

Happy Hogswatchnight*, all!

*Hogswatch(day) is the Winter Solstice, as well as the Christmas equivalent, so as it's the day before the Winter Solstice as I post this... :)

Terry Pratchett owns all this Discworld stuff.

* * *

Susan had been the one to end it.

Lobsang had given her his best shot at a perfect moment, and while she'd been impressed, Susan had found one or two things to quibble about. It meant he'd have to come back and try again. That was how their courtship went. He would offer; she'd make sure he'd have a plausible excuse to come back. He would smile in an infuriatingly knowing way; sometimes she'd send him away because of it.

After a week or so, she let him kiss her. He was rather better at it than Imp and the three youths who'd had the courage to take her out on more than two dates (a lord's third son named Roderick, a wealthy young nobody Mrs. Gaiter had introduced her to, and one of Lord Vetinari's Dark Clerks by the name of Hansen). That was the point at which she'd begun to have hope; she even had begun to forgive her grandfather for his manipulation. Finding 'someone like her' seemed to be turning out quite well.

Things had proceeded quite normally. There were dinners out. There were trips to the opera, and to mix things up, a showing of _The Egging On of the Stoat_ at the Dysk. The neighbors had gossiped about Susan's infinitesimally sunnier attitude and the official weekly teatime visit from that strange young monk. However, Mrs. Thrasher, Dame Hastings, the Right Honorable Misses Flora and Angelica Blaine, and the entire household of unwed sisters by the name of Garrett had had to assemble most of their gossip from whole cloth, because Lobsang and Susan had rarely consented to use doors, let alone the front one. Susan had spent a little time complaining about how abnormal that was, but after a while, she found she could endure a little abnormality in her life.

After a month or so (by a month or so, one means six weeks and three days, because she cared about the details and _he was Time_), Susan had let him take her to bed. And gods, it had been sweet enough to rot one's teeth. For a boy who'd only been eighteen a few weeks, Lobsang had been gentle and generous. Of course, that was probably due to the aforementioned _being Time_ thing, as well as the fact that he'd half-grown up as part of the Theives' Guild. One couldn't be part of that fraternity without working closely – one might even be obliged to say _intimately_ – with Ankh-Morpork's seamstresses. He'd had a certain masculine disappointment that Susan hadn't enjoyed it quite as much as he had, but she'd only had to say, "Next time, perhaps" and smile to cheer him up.

They'd practiced. The subsequent next times met expectations.

Too, there were arguments, and Susan was sincerely grateful for them. They were so _ordinary!_ How beautifully commonplace it was to snap at one another that "Maybe you should leave the toilet lid as you found it!" or "Give me a little warning next time!" She was especially grateful for the few quarrels they had managed to have, simply because Lobsang had a miraculous, suspicious talent at avoiding impending arguments. It was infuriating.

"You know when a big row is going to happen," she'd said flatly one day, three months and two days before she'd brought things to an end.

Lobsang had looked up from watching the ants clean up after the picnic they'd just finished in Hide Park, and the look he gave her had made her grit her teeth. It had been the look her mother had always given her just before saying, "_Yes_, Susan. But we call them horses, not _horsies_." It was the look she herself gave one or two of her students – the expression undid any verbal praise because she believed the child was being silly on purpose.

Before he could answer, whether to deny or oh-so-patiently praise her observation skills, Susan had cut in, "I mean you _know_ it – you premember it – and make sure we don't have it."

He'd shrugged. "Why not? Isn't it much pleasanter that way?" He'd leaned in to distract her with a kiss.

"Isn't that abusing your powers?" she'd asked, only allowing one peck on the lips. "Isn't that fooling around with history? If we're supposed to have the fight, hadn't we better have it?"

Usually so agile in the dojo, dancing out of the way of razor-edged shuriken as if they were shuttlecocks lobbed by crippled octogenarians, Lobsang's precognition hadn't quite been able to get ahead of his eighteen-year-old mouth.

"What's the point of arguing over something that pointless?"

To say he'd instantly regretted it didn't do justice to the sheer velocity of the metaphorical foot with which he kicked himself. He'd already had a grimace on his face and an apology on his tongue by the time the question mark had carved itself into history, but Susan had already gotten to her feet and started stalking away. The argument itself had lasted an hour; the period of quiet fuming and bouquets of flowers so far out of season that their closest relatives were fossils had lasted about a week.

And then Susan had asked what argument he'd been trying to avoid. And he had refused to tell her. _That_ quarrel had lasted a good week.

Things devolved.

Death had set the whole thing in motion when he had told her that Lobsang was someone like her, someone who was only mostly human. Susan had inferred that they would understand each other because their experiences couldn't help but be similar. Reality enjoyed turning her assumptions into not-very-amusing aphorisms.

Susan's parents had raised her in a strangely regimented way, but she'd been loved and thoughtfully brought up in the expectation of being correctly finished at the Quirm College for Girls, learning a few skills, and running the duchy once she'd come of age. It had only been since she was sixteen that she'd agonized over the bizarre reality of having Death for a grandfather.

Lobsang, on the other hand, had been born twice, had lived as two people, and – as far as Susan was aware – had agonized over approximately nothing in his life. The realization that he wasn't like other people had come late in his life, and with the realization had come the relief of understanding a few personality quirks, as well as powers that were more fun than burdensome.

Perhaps it was his cheerfulness about the entire thing that wore on her. The careful avoidance of uncomfortable discussions on his part certainly didn't help. In time, his smugness had lost what charm it had once had.

But what had convinced Susan that she was better off ending the relationship was the abrupt realization that Lobsang saw her much as she saw everyone else.

The part of her that was Death was eternal; other people were, to that part, just dust motes in the vastness of existence. _That_ was morphic resonance diluted by a generation of separation from her grandfather. Lobsang was the son of Time. He _was_ Time. To him, _she_ was the blip, if a pleasant one.

He was never consciously an ass about it. Those few moments when he went glassy-eyed or exuded an aura of awesome eternity (and _that_ was a surprise the first time it happened!) were as involuntary as a sneeze. Susan could remember every time she'd used her heritage to her advantage – and used it to dismiss anyone she chose. That shamed her. Then it made her angry.

Lobsang saw that coming, too. When he couldn't evade her anymore, after a week of dodging and performing the kinds of mental and verbal gymnastics that would have made even Lord Vetinari raise both eyebrows, Lobsang took her for a long, sad walk along the Ankh.

"I'm sorry for what I can't be," he'd said to her. They had stopped near the Bridge of Size, and Lobsang had looked undecided about trying to take her hand. "And I loved you, you know."

"Past tense already?" Masking the hurt with the anger, this question had barely managed to wriggle its way past gritted teeth.

"Every tense," he'd reminded her rather more gently than she deserved. "But you've already made your decision, haven't you? It can't matter what I feel now."

That stung. And then it enraged.

But all Susan said was, "No."

And, "Goodbye."


	3. Chapter 3

Hullo, those who are reading. Sorry for the mess, but I was dissatisfied with pacing and overuse of the past perfect. This chapter fixes much of those problems; it recycles most of the important points (and my favorite asides) from the deleted chapters. From here, I aim to make this straightforward and not too... distractingly digressive. Thank you for your patience.

If, however, you felt the previous iteration worked better, and my instincts are just terrible, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I can't tell anymore, and feedback would be useful. Thanks again.

**Terry Pratchett owns all the Discworld stuff.**

* * *

Some weeks later, Susan would marvel at how easily Death could be cowed. It flew in the face of the usual implacable characterization. It really depended on context.

The short form was that on this early summer day, Susan had stormed through the doors of Fidgett's Gentlemen's Club on Esoteric Street, stalked past the tall brass urns and their sprawling broad-leafed plants, up the carpeted stairs and into the library where four tubby old rich men dozed with their waistcoats unbuttoned in order to kick her grandfather out of his feigned snooze and demand he take her to his country and give her alcohol.

Not very long afterward, Susan slapped open the door of Death's cottage, nearly clipping Albert on the way in. Slinging her light overcoat at the coatrack, she groused, "I really hate being human, sometimes, I really do."

"Try bein' a stick of furniture sometime!" Albert snapped, stomping away toward the kitchen. Susan ignored him. It was how they communicated.

WHAT HAPPENED?

"I dumped Lobsang, that's what happened." Susan headed straight for the study, her grandfather trailing her like a bewildered old hound.

OH, DEAR.

She snorted and looked over her shoulder on her way to the desk that stood in front of a convenient liquor cabinet. "Shouldn't you already know?" Her tone was just shy of snide. "If you exist in all times - I mean if last century and next week are in no way different to you, then this shouldn't be a surprise."

YOU DON'T WANT ME PAYING THAT MUCH ATTENTION TO YOU. YOU SAID. YOU SAID IT WAS SO FAR FROM NORMAL THAT IF IT WENT FURTHER, IT WOULD BECOME AN ENTIRELY NEW DIVISION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES.

With a flat stare that usually triggered infantile cowering in her employers, Susan pointed at the liquor cabinet. "May I?" she ground out between her teeth. When Death nodded, she flung open the doors and fished out a tumbler and a tall crystal decanter of something tawny and powerful.

* * *

"Fate!"

His own name came into Fate's mind with literally no regard for physics. For one, Fate only wore the shape of a middle-aged man for the look of it; while he never really manifested for humans, the other gods and anthropomorphic personifications in Dunmanifestin skimped on respect when he showed up in any of his other avatars (stone slabs didn't get much by way of eye contact). He certainly didn't wear this form in order to use the ears, which was good, because the other personalities on the divine peak of the Hub treated sound rather like two seven-year-old girls treated those trunks of old clothes in the attic.

"Fate! Dammit, don't ignore me!"

This one, for instance. Anoia. Recently benefited from the antics of Moist von Lipwig, one of Fate's favorite gamepieces. She was currently calling Fate's name at the top of her whisks, ladles, box of matches, and three hair elastics - her 'voice' evoked what she presided over, so it was a good job that Fate didn't use his human form's ears. Anoia was aggravating enough as it was.

"I'm not ignoring you, dear. I'm attending to The Game." Fate flicked a look across the Disc at his opponent, who rolled her eyes.  
"Ah," Anoia replied, coming to his side. She flicked her cigarette, the flying sparks descending to the Disc over Djelibeybi; a number of priests ascribed the resulting meteor shower to seven different supreme gods. "Is Moist doing anything interesting?"

After a moment's pause, Fate replied, "Still discovering what he can get over on Harry King. Seems to be trying to push his own inhumation fee higher." He turned his night-sky gaze to Anoia and asked, "Was there something you wanted?"

Irritably reducing her cigarette to half its length on one draw, Anoia asked, "How much longer do we have to keep the human? He's creeping me out. And Offler's trying to teach him how to do a death roll."

"I think he's looking on his time here as a sort of study-abroad training. All the better to inhume with, you know."

"I don't think he needs _help_."

The Lady looked up from the Disc, too, and interjected, "Look at it this way - he's harmlessly amusing himself and is out of your hair."

"Harmless? He's drowned three naiads! _Naiads_, Lady!"

The Lady flapped her hand. "They'll pop back. You know they survive as long as their rivers do. And last I heard, they were lining up for him to do it again. They think it's fun."

"It's disgraceful!"

"If he actually bothers _you_, just shut his head in a drawer again."

"You two keep bringing him back!" The cigarette, fumbled mid-gesture, only missed the Disc by the slimmest of margins. Krullian astronomers gleefully documented the comet that came close enough to the Rim that a few of those working on the Edge got unseasonable sunburns.

"Keep trying. It's possible Death will make it stick this time."

* * *

It wasn't until she was four tumblers in that Susan realized Death had been pouring her generous measures of sherry. After glowering into the glass in sullen recognition, she tipped the contents into her mouth and swallowed as fast as she was able. Those first four fingers of whisky had affected her vision, it seemed.

"I know I'm an adult now," she drawled. The part of her that was knurd - that is, so sober that she needed a few drinks just to get to _normal_ - would've protested, but it was too busy stumbling around in circles and laughing at the kittens that were clawing their way up Death's robes.

OH?

"I have regrets," she explained, her voice going dire and profound, so much so that it was at least half sarcasm.

INDEED, Death answered.

"Lobsang, for Instance. I wish that'd lasted longer." The condensation rings on the black mahogany table she and her grandfather flanked drew her attention. Her index finger pulled the rings into intricate wreaths, loop by loop. "I mean, I can't go back. It's done, o'course."

WE CANNOT CHANGE WHAT HAS HAPPENED. Susan supposed her grandfather was trying to be helpful, but platitudes did not magically become welcome when said in block caps that sounded like slabs of stone grinding across cave mouths.

Irritated with Death, with the situation, with herself, she drawled, "Yes. Thank you." Then she palmed her forehead and muttered, "And why the hell did I let him take me to bed? That was an idiot move, in retrospect."

TAKE YOU _WHERE_?

"Don't even _try_ that, Granddad," Susan scolded. "You can't feel angry - you don't even have the glands for it."

I DO NOT _FEEL_ ANGRY, Death corrected her, lowering his countenance so the twin blue glows in his eye sockets came from under the brow ridge in a sort of glower. I CAN BE ANGRY. I _AM_ ANGRY. CONSIDER IT A VARIETY OF GRIM.

"Well," Susan said, "Drop it. I'm an adult; it's done; you're not to go take some silly revenge on a boy who's no worse than any other fool on the Disc. Besides, he's an anthropomorphic personification, too, now, and I'd like not to know what it looks like when Death and Time fight. I'm sure it's against the Rules."

I WILL NOT HAVE MY GRANDDAUGHTER TRIFLED WITH.

Her irritation shifted just enough to allow a little amusement in. "Did you ever consider it was me doing the trifling?"

If Death had had flesh, Susan had the impression that it would be scarlet with embarrassment. She started to laugh. She laughed like she hadn't laughed since she was very young. Eventually, she had to set down her glass and support herself against the table.

Through it all, Death waited in a silent, bewildered sort of embarrassment.

IF YOU ARE QUITE DONE, he finally intoned, picking two kittens out of his lap and placing them on the floor. It was difficult to be repressive when one was covered in cute.

"I forgive you almost everything just for that expression," Susan said with a smile, adding "As it were." If she were a genius with paint, she'd paint it; if she were a poet, she'd compose sonnets about it; regardless, she'd remember it all her days.

THANK YOU, Death replied, perking up. He'd been afraid for a moment that Susan was going to be all... lachrymose. Ysabell would have been. Death had so liked the last ... Susan had been stepping out with Lobsang for about a year, so he'd liked the last _year_ because Susan had seemed so happy. Comparatively, that was. If he was any judge, though that was pretty touch-and-go. At least, she hadn't been avoiding him as studiously as she once had, and when grandfather and granddaughter had spoken, the exchange hadn't been cold and arch. And now, he'd finally gotten a laugh out of her!

"Did you know?" she asked. Her voice was suddenly solemn. She looked up at him, and her eyes had lost the gleam that came with humor. Death felt a bit like something small and fluttery facing down the business end of a pin; he had no heart to feel sinking, but he could certainly imagine it.

KNOW WHAT?

"Did you know that this was how it would end? All along?"

DID YOU? Susan's bleary eyes gained some focus in a glare. _THERE WENT THAT BRIEF BIT OF GOOD MOOD_, Death mused with a mental sigh.

"That power comes and goes with me, remember? _Did you know?_"

IT WAS ONE OF A BILLION BILLION POSSIBILITIES, SUSAN. EVERY DECISION DESTROYS AND REBUILDS THE UNIVERSE EVERY MOMENT. THIS BREAKUP BOTH _DID_ AND _DID NOT_ HAPPEN.

The frown went a bit more fierce. In Death's growing experience, that tended to precede what some would classify as a tantrum. He'd never quite dared to call those bouts of snapping and storming away by that name; he had the idea it wouldn't be easy to gain forgiveness, regardless of how much she'd laughed just s few moments ago.

With studied nonchalance, he asked, DID YOU KNOW, THERE IS A THEORY THAT SOME FELLOWS CALL THE 'TROUSERS OF TIME'? A CONVENIENT METAPHOR FOR MORTAL MINDS TO ACCEPT. THE THING ABOUT TROUSERS IS THAT THERE'S MORE THAN ONE LE-

Death paused and then creaked to his feet. One hand swung casually out to the side; the scythe clicked against the metacarpals as it responded to its owner's call. Death said, EXCUSE ME. THE DUTY CALLS. FEEL FREE TO STAY AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.

He'd felt the fabric of the universe twitch and unravel a bit. The sensation felt like Fate. Grimly, he wished for an opportunity to kick that fellow right in the fork.

* * *

Mrs. Gammage patted Susan's hand reassuringly, and because it was Mrs. Gammage, Susan neither withdrew nor glared. For one, the gesture was kindly meant and had involved no prying; for another, Mrs. Gammage wouldn't see a glare. The poor old widow, as out of place in Biers as Susan was in every other part of her life, was as blind as a mole.

"Shall I buy another round, dearie?" asked the old woman. "Miss Angua had me mend a great sack of socks for her, so I'm flush this week!"

There was a palpable feeling of ears pricking up at the mention of money and the equally palpable and immediate setting aside of that sudden interest. No one dared take a copper from Mrs. Gammage that she didn't offer; those who did found themselves short both money and a bit more than a gallon of blood.

"Thank you, Mrs. Gammage," Susan replied, "But I think I've had all I need tonight." Indeed, after borrowing Binky long enough to make it back to Ankh-Morpork, Susan had nursed one beer until she'd wound down from angry and depressed to merely dizzy.

"I'm sure you know best, dear. And I'm sure whatever it is will pass."

That's one of the several things Susan liked about Beirs. Even the lone fully human patron refused to pry into others' business.

"I'm sure it will." To keep the small talk going, Susan shifted the topic. "What do you have planned for your sock money?"

"Oh, I've a little account at the Royal Bank," the widow replied. Her dried-apple face split into a surprisingly healthy grin. "I'll let the stuff multiply a little. No one'll let me buy more than one drink for 'em, so I may's well put the money where it'll do a little good." She leaned in, as if imparting secret knowledge, adding, "I dropped by the Small Gods' Cemetery, though. I heard through the grapevine that a new shovel and set of shears wouldn't be refused."

Susan commended her charitable impulse. They chatted for the next couple of hours, interrupted only by Mrs. Drull, a ghoul who catered for kids' birthday parties. Politely excusing herself, Susan left the old ladies to gossip in that efficient way only elderly females and certain men of a theatrical bent can. Bidding Igor the bartender goodnight, she departed.

Though Susan was too well-disciplined and not nearly drunk enough to weave on her feet, she left her defenses lower than usual. She didn't relax quite far enough to be good prey for any hardworking night prowler, but since she was feeling just a little self-destructive and a lot sorry for herself, she didn't hide her presence from anyone. Folks' attention, for once, utterly failed to slide past her. Thieves flicked their eyes uneasily at the skinny figure in black with a tied-down cotton-ball of white-blond hair with a black streak in. Seamstresses on their way to or from clients nodded respectfully at her and felt a cynical, surprised sort of gratification when Susan returned the courtesy.

It felt weird to have this many gazes on her, but she luxuriated in the curiosity and suspicion. She didn't know how many eyes followed her movements, but in this time and in this place, she didn't give anything that resembled a damn.

* * *

Five eyes of the dozens that followed Susan's progress gazed from rather farther away than she ever would have suspected.

"Can this be any more dull?" the owner of one eye complained. Watching Susan drink had had about two minutes of interest in it; it had gotten a little better when Fate had changed the view to the palace in Djelibeybi. Fate had blown into the vision, and a priest had clutched at his chest and fallen over, but then he'd shifted the view back to Susan on her way to join that boring old woman in the bar.

Jonathan Teatime poked at the vision - or was it merely a model? - of the Discworld. His human finger passed clean through, as though he'd tried to touch a rainbow. "Why can I not go back? I'd like to have my eye back, you know. There's so much to do, and I can't do it here."

Fate leaned back comfortably on his marble bench. It made up one side of a small amphitheatre, which centered on the small Discworld. Had he touched the Rim where Teatime had tried to touch it, the Great A'Tuin would've gone spinning in space; he'd done it once before, and the space turtle's sick had been recorded in history as the most interesting meteor shower ever seen.

"You've been gone four years," he told the Assassin, who blinked once before accepting the information. "It's unlikely you'd find it."

"The boy has it," Teatime replied.

Leadingly, Fate countered, "The boy _had_ it four years ago. Nine-year-old humans are known to be scornful of things they had at five."

"I'd find it. It's _mine_."

"Hmm." This time, the response was disinterested. "You'll have to wait. Go find something to do."

A dagger, its blade dark and matte with lamp black, flew from its sheath and stopped an inch from Fate's neck. The stars-in-a-void eyes shifted in such a way as to imply they were looking at the dagger, which whined as it curled into a tight spiral.

"You bore me, boy," Fate sighed. "Be sure you don't annoy me. Go find something to do." A square hand rose and flipped dismissively.

Teatime found himself in an ice field that made up the godly part of Cori Celesti. He'd only once needled Fate into doing this before. Teatime started _up_ this time, since going _down_ last time had landed him back in the center of Dunmanifestin, where the model of the world floated. He'd been trying to get to the mundane part of the mountain, which made up the Hub and would lead him into the Ramtops and, eventually back to distant Ankh-Morpork. There were goats and yeti and, at some point, people; if he inhumed any of the three fairly early in his journey, he wouldn't freeze to death. Although Teatime hadn't been very good at avoiding death recently, he seemed to be doing fairly well at recovering. He'd try again.

At least it was something to do.

* * *

The screamer's job was to grab readers' attention. Since this one had penetrated Susan's hangover with a big, bold "**DEATH STALKS NOBLE HALLS!**", it had done its job admirably, for Susan was handing over a couple of pennies to young Markus, who respectfully lifted his soft cap to her. Absently, she advised him not to be late for class; twice this week was twice too often.

He lingered on a too-bright gap-toothed grin before he answered her. "Not to worry, Miss Susan!" he said. "You've made up my last tuppence for today. I'll go shine my face and be to school directly, see if I don't!"

Markus was just at the age to wonder about the differences between boys and girls and to take a sudden leap forward in creativity when alleviating his boredom. He was remarkably well-behaved for someone with few social skills and no friends. Susan was deeply invested in his being so. Susan kept an eye out for those children. Though she knew she could never put whole a shattered mind nor mend a fractured sense of self – nor even fend off the blows that would cause the breakage, no matter how much she wanted to do otherwise – Susan could sure as hell help build a metaphorical container to keep all the bits in. There would be no new Jonathan Teatimes on her watch.

So far, so good on that count. She was proud and grateful that she'd managed to moderate young Jason, who had been yearmates with Vincent (but who had at least another two years ahead of him at Madam Frout's. When one couldn't sit still for a lesson without adding _this_ bit of metal to _that_ beaker of water just to enjoy the light show and find out whether Miss Susan knew any interesting swears, one tended not to advance all that fast in school); he could now be relied on to announce his more distressing impulses before acting upon them. It didn't mean he always suppressed the impulses, but he did give her a sporting chance at distracting him.

As she reflected on that bit of progress, the teacher part of Susan wondered what she'd have been able to do with the mad Assassin if she'd gotten to him when he was young. She had so many experiences and ideas now that she hadn't had even five years ago, because Jason had taught her as much as she'd taught him. If nothing else, her threats had become extremely specific, legal, and actionable.

And it wasn't just monsters who had learned to avoid her; the Beggars', Theives', and Confectioners' Guilds now taught their inductees how to handle Miss Susan. If she could manage that _and_ curb some of Jason's worst impulses, then...

Jonathan Teatime had been a child once; surely there was a point at which he had heeded threats instead of embodying them.

And that was where Susan shut down that line of thought. The firing of two more synapses would have her astride Binky and heading off to fix Teatime before she killed him.

She couldn't go back and fix him. _Of course_ she couldn't do that! More, she _wouldn't_. Susan firmly reminded herself that probably she had only defeated that adversary by luck. Who knows when he'd gotten so badly broken? She wouldn't push luck that much just for pride's sake, just to show that she _could_. That sort of thing got up the Lady's nose, and the risk of angering someone that powerful probably wouldn't be worth whatever was gained. Teatime was dead; that was that.

Besides, Grandfather had been clear: What had happened had already happened; what would happen _had also already happened._ So, the point was, this mad young Assassin had grown up to kill many, which was part of his job, and had done so with vigor and excess, which probably wasn't. He'd tried to kill the Hogfather; Susan had stopped him. He'd tried to kill her; she'd returned the favor. He'd tried to kill her grandfather; she'd stopped him permanently. Those things had already happened, and going back in time to try to stop them happening wouldn't actually stop them happening.

The only time Death had deviated from this theme had been last night. Her grandfather had begun to ramble about Time's trousers. Metaphors got messy when she'd dated one (and had noticed nothing unusual about his trousers when he wasn't wearing saffron or starry-black robes) and called another "Granddad". She'd never even gotten to hear the whole trouser theory because the Duty had called Death away before he could finish his thought. And then she'd gone and gotten drunk.

So, no. Susan reminded herself that she simply tried to make sure the children within her scope of influence didn't become like Teatime, because she couldn't go back and make sure he didn't become like himself. It was simply out of the question, so she had to influence the future and be satisfied with not influencing the past.

Some schools of thought (headed locally by an orangutan) held that to change history would change all of subsequent history, which would alter _you_ as you were when you decided to alter the past, and therefore _you wouldn't decide to alter the past_. As a result, this school of thought believed that people were changing history all the time and were thereby guaranteeing that they never went back and did it. *

While dating Lobsang, Susan had been so keen on being normal about it that she had no idea this school of thought existed. It didn't matter, because she wasn't going to go back in time, no matter how powerful the urge to make a difference.  
She could guarantee it.

* * *

*Yetis had a slightly different take on the whole thing, but the net effect was the same; if you died, you could return to your save point and avoid your death on the next try. Live and learn, as it were.

* * *

Later that week, Susan had her grandfather over for tea. Her flat was tiny and in one of the middle-class neighborhoods that was just barely on the nicer side of the River Ankh, but she was quietly proud of it. It was where a real person with a real job lived.** And that real person with a real job could afford it more easily, having been promoted to Deputy Headmistress just this past Hogswatch. Madam Frout had made the sudden and final acquaintance with Susan's grandfather about a month after Susan had broken up with Lobsang. Though Madam Frout been barely middle-aged, she'd believed firmly in the Healthy Benefits of Regular Sport, so it had been a surprise to hear that she'd been found cold and stiff at her kitchen table before a bowl of porridge.

So, the senior teacher, Miss Halpern, had advanced to Madam Halpern; Susan, as the next senior*** and most lucrative teacher at the academy, had become Madam Halpern's deputy.

At the time, it had been pretty exciting. Madam Frout's plan for education had been, in fact, a Plan for Education Through Play, and it had been exceedingly silly and almost completely ineffective. On the small scale of her own classroom, Susan had counterbalanced the silliness with structured classes, critical thinking, creative field trips, interesting guest lecturers, and a crucially cynical understanding of human motivations. However, because she'd had no way to expand this curriculum to the rest of the school, rather more of her time than should be necessary was dedicated to undoing the damage done by well-meaning milquetoasts. The post of deputy headmistress gave her plenty of scope to change the tone of the place.

Half a year on, Susan came to the conclusion as she prepared for school that perhaps her reach had exceeded her grasp, and she was just adult enough to admit it. Though she was able to persuade, bully, or steamroll the other teachers into including at least one lesson on critical thinking into their plans, there had been little success. Most of the young women in her employ simply weren't capable of teaching those lessons, never having received them themselves. They hadn't benefited from the upbringing afforded by parents trying far too hard to counterbalance the metaphysical effects of having an anthropomorphic personification in the family.

Only Miss Atherton showed any aptitude, but she was exhibiting the symptoms of an unpaid accountant on the cusp of saying, "We'll have to hold the ceremony in the Temple of the Small Gods; my mother's an Anoian, and she'll kill me if I get married at the Temple of Blind Io."

All this was getting in the way of _making a difference_.

Susan took a moment to stare into the middle distance at this thought. It had had shades of capital letters starting to color it. It was reassuring to find a purpose just as she was entering a crisis of the early twenties, but it wouldn't do to have found a Purpose. That way lay spectacles on chains, hidden bottles of gin, and the idea that obedience walked hand-in-hand with permissiveness.

SUSAN?

Grimly, Susan shooed her thoughts into order and poured her grandfather a fresh cup of tea. She examined her lower-case purpose.

Make a difference. In what? To whom? And of what sort?

"I wish I could make more of a difference at school," she sighed, half answering herself and half answering her grandfather. Taking up her own cup and beginning to pace the bit of floor not taken up by the table that sometimes served duty as a desk, washstand, and butcher's block, Susan continued, "I could use the Voice, but that'd be _cheating_. I can't _cheat_. There'd be difference, but people have got to make it for themselves." She paused just long enough to take a sip of the tea. "Like Jason. I can't just reach in and flip all his switches. Rather, I _shouldn't_, even if I _could_ - and I doubt it, because I think the damage is too permanent..."

She paused, frowning at the idea that had just sprang into her head. "He's too like Teatime." The name came out through gritted teeth, frustration and dread coloring it. Susan threw back the entire scalding cup in one gulp. Grimacing at the knowledge that she'd not be able to taste anything for two days, she asked plaintively, "What _makes_ kids like that, anyway?"

Having remained silent the entire time and positively radiating concern, Death finally spoke up. ER, SUSAN? Wavering only a second, he said, YOU REALIZE IT'S A BIT POINTLESS TO WONDER. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MAKE THEM THIS WAY HAS HAPPENED. IT IS NOT AS IF YOU CAN CHANGE IT. THINGS THAT HAPPEN STAY HAPPENED.

"I know, you've told me before. Repeatedly," she sighed. "I just can't help thinking that a little push at the right time could achieve _something_."

THAT WAY LIES SORROW, he warned. YOUR FATHER FOUND THAT OUT THE HARD WAY.

"At least I'll have tried," she retorted. She knew she sounded childish; she'd made the Power With A Purpose argument the first time she'd done this _Death_ thing. She understood better, now, why she couldn't treat _everything_ the way she treated _most_ things - that is, authoritatively and decisively - but she also had a better idea of how the universe worked. Using the powers her heritage gave her judiciously was possible simply because she knew more of the Rules and could work around them.

"Besides," she added, "Queen Keliherenna is still alive." She could never get her parents to talk about it, but Susan had read the autobiography, and Her Majesty invited Susan to the capital every Soul Cake Tuesday and was never lacking for interesting stories.

THREE GODS OWED ME FAVORS. SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE LIVED. AND EVEN IF I COULD PULL THE TRICK AGAIN, I WOULD NOT. THAT BOY THREATENED YOU.

Just then, Death felt reality twist, another rent falling open, another life ending unexpectedly. Another life that Death had to usher into the afterlife, personally. Another absence that he couldn't hide in his omnipresence. A Fated absence. This time, he cursed aloud, surprising Susan almost out of her scowl.

"What's wrong?"

I CANNOT SAY.

"You _cannot?_" The scowl solidified again.

I'D LIKE TO. _VERY_ MUCH.

Another important human life fell into his sphere of influence, leaving the edges of reality flapping and raveling slightly, lesser lives speeding from their current reality into the afterlife at those tears.

BUT IT WILL HAVE TO WAIT IF YOU WANT FOURECKS TO REMAIN POPULATED. He called the scythe to him and headed for the door. JUST... DON'T ACT RASHLY, WOULD YOU? Another city worth of lives popped free of reality. **ALL RIGHT, I'M GOING!**

The door would have slammed behind him if he hadn't merely used the expedient of passing straight through it.

* * *

**If Susan had her own income, she needn't take any money from the duchy's coffers, which Lord Bloemkoolveld was in turn using to establish dame schools in every village. And if she were making a difference - directly as well as indirectly - in the lives of others, then at least she could say that she had some purpose, even if it were just guaranteeing another generation of spinster teachers.

***For some reason, in Ankh-Morpork, a young woman who was good with children and could do sums and write letters could hardly go two terms without being proposed to by a number of entrepreneurs with a need for accountants who don't require wages. In the normal course of things outside Ankh-Morpork, such a woman would have to become a governess in the employ of a surly gentleman of considerable fortune with dark secrets if she ever wanted to marry.


	4. Chapter 4

All the Discworld stuff is Terry Pratchett's.

* * *

She'd left a note. She knew it was childish as she did it, she knew it was childish now, and she would admit it to Death's face that it had been childish when she saw him again. And honestly, he should know by now that if he directly instructed Susan not to do something, then she would end up doing it. She was just like her mother in that respect. Death shouldn't be surprised by this.

_In fact, by that logic,_ Susan told herself,_ This means he actually wanted me to do this. He keeps getting better at manipulation, so surely he's not above reverse psycholog_y. She knew that this was unfair - it was probably untrue - but when Susan Sto Helit's pride was stung, her sense of fairness tended to find the deepest, darkest corner of her mind in which to sulk.

Susan drew her attention back to the present - well, she drew it back to her personal _now_, at any rate - and tried to orient herself. The trick of snapping her fingers while intending to go somewhere and somewhen worked as well for just her alone as it did for a classroom of children with diverse attention spans and levels of bladder-control, so she was unsurprised to be where and when she found herself. But it never hurt to get the lay of the land, since she intended to do more than merely observe.

For most, it would be difficult to get one's bearings while distracted by hoopskirts you could use to house entire Klatchian nomadic tribes and faces obscured by meticulously cultivated muttonchops. Susan however, was more bothered by the fact that the streets were far filthier than the ones she was used to - honestly, had no one heard of a broom?

Worse, the thieves here were rude and unlicensed. Susan could say this for Lord Vetinari: The man's idea of organized crime had its merits. After she'd broken the hand of the first cutpurse to threaten her – she'd brought along the fireplace poker on this little trip, because why mess with what worked? – Susan concentrated on letting people's attention slide right off her. That talent had rescued her from a number of dull and unnecessary parent-teacher conferences and was now protecting a number of stupid and ambitious young men from being brained with a household fire iron. Besides, her clothing was twenty years too fashionable and thirty years too severe for this time, and it was easier to deflect attention than to construct a new wardrobe from scratch. She was using her Deathly talents, but she was not doing Death's work; she left her schoolteacher's garb as it was for convenience and comfort.

She didn't allow herself to think too hard about what she was doing. She was pretty sure that her grandfather would _not_ be pleased about this, and the note certainly wouldn't help. And there was a small, unfamiliar feeling in the back of her mind that worried about this being the right thing to do. She ignored it, of course, being in the habit of _knowing_ the right thing and just getting on with it.

So, instead of sussing out this discomfort, Susan turned part of her consciousness to the population of the city. Another of her many talents was the ability to mentally locate a person if she knew their name. It was useful when she had to take on the Duty, and it was becoming more useful the more concerned she became with the well-being and education of children. No child within ten city blocks of her ever went missing, for example. Hooky was meeting a swift, localized extinction around Madam Frout's Academy. And the tardy ones had learned quite early the value of simply owning up and taking the consequences.

Bringing to mind Jonathan Teatime, she turned her attention Hubward. She set off, leaving a number of thieves and one seamstress coming off her shift gazing blankly at one another and wondering what they were all doing together on one corner of Broadway at seven in the morning.

* * *

Gods, it itched! Jonathan had had to endure physical discomfort before – and school was one perpetual physical discomfort – so endure he would, but it was a bit of a trial. His hand was halfway to his face before he caught himself. Again. The instinct was to scratch, but he changed it to a press-and-wiggle motion. The stinging of the muscles around his eyelids increased sharply, but the itching eased. He supposed he should be grateful that the bleeding had given way to the itching. The bleeding had made it hard to see. Itching was merely annoying.

Oh, but it was worth it. Even through that first day of dabbing away the blood and tears, Jonathan had examined his world through the stone. He now knew what octarine looked like; the University and everything within four blocks of it was curtained – no, _stained_ with it. When watching people, he could now discern fine muscle twitches, and from the set of those muscles, he could tell how someone would move. It certainly made for easier inhumations. His marks in Stealth and Speed, top of the class to begin with, were now busy setting records.

Also, if he took the time to pay extra-close attention to those muscle twitches and how they shaped the face and the stance, Jonathan could make informed guesses at others' emotional states. He expected to have friends soon; he could watch how his words affected others and lead them onto topics that made them pleasantly disposed toward him. Perhaps he could sit at one of the long tables at meals now without the other lads taking up their trays and moving!

The matron in charge of the Assassin School's infirmary (which was the refuge of the flu-sufferer and the poison victims with unusually strong constitutions; the injuries that occurred at the School were typically fatal) had tried to convince him to wear that ridiculous eye patch again. She wouldn't be asking again. She'd stormed off and resigned just this morning when Jonathan had offered to give her a reason to wear it, instead. So he was free to use all his senses, including the newly enhanced one, on his first trip out of doors since getting the stone.

Because he was very smart and didn't care to linger over the dull window dressings of nature (He was only interested in nature insofar as it could provide vantage points or be turned into weapons), Jonathan took in a swift impression of the breezy, early summer morning. The red algae bloom on the Ankh wasn't just bright; it nearly glowed. The ivy scaling the walls of the dark, forbidding walls of the Guild of Joculators wasn't so much lively as incandescent. The backlit fog that made up the Morporkian sky was making a fair bid to blind him. Jonathan reflected that it might take a little getting used to.

And then he looked at the people.

It wasn't as interesting as he'd expected. Oh, look, a gilt button hanging onto a linen thread by some miracle of physics. Gracious, see those mud-stained spats. Huh, that hairpiece does not match the muttonchops at all.

He decided rather quickly that he was looking at livestock on their hind legs - sheep who'd been parted from their wool only long enough for it to be dyed and stuck back on in geometric shapes. He tucked a hand into the pocket of the white duck trousers that made up half of his charity-boy uniform, seeking the dagger secreted there. How gratifying it would be to cull the herd before him! But he realized that that would leave none standing. Besides, he was supposed to be reminding himself hourly, on Dr. Amadan's orders, of the Guild's motto: _Nil Mortifi Sine Lucre_ - no killing without payment, which sounded silly to Jonathan. But he was here to learn, so he'd heed his lessons for now.

A sudden smile brightened his face like the sun clearing the Rim as a thought occurred to him. He'd never been to the Shades. He should discover why they were called that.

There was no guild rule against defending oneself.

* * *

It was early summer in Ankh-Morpork, but in Death's country, the wheat fields waved in the not-exactly-extant breeze, heavy with kernels ready to harvest.

Death had finally managed to get Mort and Ysabell to go back to the cottage with Albert, who was under strict instructions to keep them out of the library. He had given them his solemn oath that three-year-old Susan would not come to harm while riding Binky. He'd also reminded the nervous parents that, since it was Binky, it was impossible for Susan to fall.

"That isn't what I'm worried about, Father," Ysabell had answered with some reproach.

I AM ASKING FOR A HALF HOUR, DAUGHTER, he had crossly reminded her. THERE SHOULD BE FEW LINGERING EFFECTS OF MY DREAD INFLUENCE. Sarcasm didn't really suit him, but some people just brought it out of him. Ysabell had at least had the grace to look just a little embarrassed at being called out so directly.

So now, Death had his hand resting on Binky's shoulder, not because the horse needed guiding but because occasionally Susan would kick him, gently, and giggle.

"He's really mine?" she asked for the third time.

YES.

"Mummy and Daddy won't let him come with us."

NO.

"Why?" This was her favorite word.

Death considered for a moment and settled on a truth.

I RIDE BINKY TO WORK.

"Why?"

IT IS A LONG WAY TO WALK. YOUR PARENTS WANT HIM TO STAY HERE. Death could get another horse, so that wasn't the issue; Mort and

Ysabell didn't want Binky because he would remind Susan of her grandfather. Death resented this. And because he could remember both the past and the future, he realized there was nothing he could do. He was fairly certain that this would be the last visit he would have from his granddaughter - at least until she visited him four years ago at age sixteen.

"You'll take good care of him, right?" Susan asked, all solemnity.

ALBERT WILL, MOSTLY. BUT YES.

"Okay."

Death went silent. It seemed that was the last word. After another few minutes of walking, Susan kicked him lightly on the wrist. He looked up in inquiry.

"I want to go fast, Granddad."

Without a word, he stuck his foot in the stirrup that was far too long for Susan's little legs, swung up, and settled himself behind her. With one arm wrapped around her waist and the other taking hold of the reins just for show, Death nudged Binky with his heel. The horse leapt into a great, rocking, shiplike canter toward the fields of wheat that were the only color in this world.

Susan shrieked with laughter, and Death knew himself to be happy. This, he thought, was fun.

Something in the universe changed in that moment. He knew that feeling simply because he'd been around for so long; it just usually indicated the impending death of one of the nodes - one of the people whose death over which he needed personally to preside. It was Fate.

Only this time, it wasn't about a death; it was about a Death.

He looked down at the laughing three-year-old, even though all he could see of her were two legs sticking out from under a bush of mostly-white curls. He thought but did not say, _YOU ARE GOING TO DO SOMETHING, AREN'T YOU? SOMETHING BIG. SOMETHING BRAVE. I WILL NOT LIKE IT. I CANNOT SEE YOU._

The trouble with remembering the future is that anything that lived and made a decision created multiple futures. There were the fabled Trousers of Time, a newish concept on the Disc, but one that governed reality. In the reality next door, Susan caught the croup and died next week. In the reality down the block, she was selected as Lord Vetinari's heir and ruled Ankh-Morpork for seven hundred years. In that reality over there, she had never been born.

All this was to say that Death did not know exactly what Susan did. But he did know that he didn't like it. And he knew that he would not be able to stop it - in any time.

He kicked the horse into a gallop that sent them wheeling several storeys above his cottage. He carefully boxed up the sound of Susan's laughter and put it in with the few memories he really cherished.

* * *

Jonathan came to the conclusion that the Shades were called the Shades for some poetic reason. It could be called the Shades because of the fine patina of filth that captured the sunlight and tucked it away in some cobwebby pocket. It could be called the Shades because of the kinds of dealings that were called "shady" by the better-to-do who thought themselves rather clever. Or it could be called the Shades because it was so easy to become one there.

Either way, it was poetic and didn't seem as interesting to Jonathan once he was able to see it all up close. There were supposed to be murders happening every four or five seconds! People whispered about the streets running with blood and money calling to the dark places in men's souls. All Jonathan had run across so far was a fat old matron glaring at him and using her broom to run a group of unfriendly looking children into her house.

Oh, and these three fellows who kept following him from a distance of half a block. If they intended to attack an eleven-year-old, Jonathan they ought to get on with it; this lingering back thing was really beneath their dignity.

As he took a right off of Elm Street onto Pewter Street, Jonathan heard, with a degree of exasperated relief, the footsteps behind him speed up. As he made the turn, he thought perhaps he could attribute the term 'The Shades' also to the curious ability of the smaller byways to hide from the light in the shadows of neighboring buildings; sunlight on the Disc was pretty viscous, but in the Shades, it oozed.

He hurried his steps so that his pursuers would have a run-up to reach him; he preferred to see them coming. There was a tiny space between two tenement buildings that was just wide enough for a nimble boy with some talent in edificeering to wall-run his way to a handhold that would get him to the roofs. While he had no trouble inhuming people, one of the discomforts he'd learned to avoid in school is being ganged up on by fellows larger than he was. It wouldn't always be that way, he swore it, but one couldn't simply speed up time.

A curious voice from behind him asked, "What the hell are you doing in the Shades?"

Jonathan turned and found himself face-to-... well, face-to-bosom, if one were to be precise, with a skinny, pretty lady with interesting hair. She didn't seem surprised to see him, but she was surprised to see the three young men round the corner behind him with knives drawn.

"I shouldn't scream if I was you, little boy," one of them said with a gap-toothed grin.

"Yer," another said. "Wouldn't do you a lick of good, an' it'd drag fings out. We got fings to do, y'know."

"Cor, lookit that eye," the third and rather more observant man muttered.

Jonathan grinned and reached into his pocket for his dagger, only to find his vision briefly obscured by a swishing curtain of black fabric. Before he could register more than that, he was treated to the astonishing vision of the clearly nobby young lady in black swinging an iron poker like a cricket bat at the gap-toothed thug's knee. As it bent in a direction nature had never intended, it made a noise somewhere between a dull ringing and a splitting melon. An agonized scream followed.

The wounded man's compatriots gaped at their leader, turned and went back around the corner to Elm Street at some speed. They left behind them a young man writhing on the cobbles moaning for help and something about ghosts.

The young woman turned her back on the pathetic sight and toward Jonathan, who became suddenly conscious of the fact that he had one hand in his trouser pocket and his mouth hanging open. Her expression was measuring and wary, but not afraid. She was in all black, and she had a poker in one hand.

It was these last two details that prompted Jonathan to ask, without preamble, "Are you an Assassin?"

The lady's expression changed. Jonathan _knew_ this one - it was surprise.

"No," she replied. "Why?"

"You're all in black, and I didn't know you were here before you spoke to me. Only Mr. Mericet and Mr. Bellefonte can do that anymore."  
He couldn't read her expression now; there were too many clues to try to put together. What mattered, though, was that she could move like a master Assassin and that he'd never seen her before.

"Perhaps we should get you back to the School," she finally said. "It _is_ a weekday, and I don't tolerate hooky."

Offended by the implication that he would skip out on _classes about how to kill people_, Jonathan replied, "I have a special dispensation. No classes until my eye has healed up."

"It also means you should be on bed rest with a cold compress."

"That's so _boring_."

The lady frowned. Then she turned and headed for Elm Street; she gestured briskly with her poker. "Come along. No arguments."

He trotted after her more out of curiosity than out of obedience. "Wait!" he cried. "I forgot!"

Warily, the lady paused and half-turned to him; she stood blinking at the hand he held out to her.

"Hello!" he chirped. "My name's Teh-ah-tim-eh - Jonathan Teh-ah-tim-eh. What's yours?"

She paused - most people usually did, so Jonathan waited patiently - but finally, gingerly put her hand in his. Jonathan, in accordance with the manners the teachers had been drilling into him for five years, bowed over the hand and kissed the knuckles.

Almost before he made contact, the lady tugged her hand from his grasp. She half-turned, gesturing for him to go before her.

"Call me Miss Susan."


	5. Chapter 5

Terry Pratchett owns all the Discworld stuff.

* * *

The Lady concentrated for a moment and then twisted reality just long enough to take herself from the center of Dunmanifestin into the damn silly verdant terraces that topped the green ice slopes of Cori Celesti.

The one she sought was half-buried under a pile of semi-human bodies. The pile was still.

Above it, however, going like a pendulum in a grandfather clock, was Death. He swung his scythe again and again, separating naiads, dryads, a delinquent ice troll (the product of a long-ago tryst between an Ice Giant and a non-troll boulder, which was now a finely distributed ton of very smug sand in the Circle Sea), and a handful of demigods from their physical forms. He was crowded on all sides with spectral figures who all seemed a bit antsy. He ignored them, and he ignored the way his elbows occasionally went through a spirit that hovered too closely.

"Why won't you hurry up?" one elfish-looking youth complained.

A drippy young woman with nothing on but some algae answered, "You _know_we wait for everyone to be reaped before reincarnating. It's good form, and we told you about it when we started this. If you don't like it, then you can go train somewhere else."

The pile of corpses surged and shifted, shedding layers like a slow, grotesque avalanche. The Lady smirked at some of the whining that followed - "Be careful! That'll bruise!" - "Good Dad, man, that was my nose!" - "Oh, was that necessary? If I'd known you'd do that, I'd've worn drawers!"

There finally emerged a head that was still showing evidence of life. What once were fair curls were now soggy waves, weighted down by at least three separate colors of blood. The face underneath them looked a bit tired but as happy as The Lady had ever seen it. When Teatime finally shrugged free of the pile of bodies, he came to a halt a quarter-inch from the humming blue edge of Death's scythe.

He exclaimed with a grin, "Welcome back!"

MOVE. Death punctuated the surly order by nudging the Assassin out of the way with the scythe's handle. He swung the scythe one more time, separating a satyr from its goat half, which had recently been separated rather messily from its human half.

The crowded spirits cheered and dove into the pile of bodies. What followed was a sight to make a normal person's stomach churn; since the only available witnesses were by no definition normal, the sight was mostly ignored.

I PROTEST THIS.

The Lady, amused, asked, "Which part?"

ALL OF IT. He jerked a thumb at Teatime. _HIM._ He jerked the same thumb at the pile of bodies, where intestines were creeping across bloodied grass to reintroduce torsos to pelvises. _THEM_. THESE PEOPLE AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE THIS OFTEN, he explained. AND MY PURPOSE IS NOT TO RESET DEMIGODS' LIVES. DEATH IS NOT A _GAME_. This last he almost growled at Teatime.

"But isn't it, sir?" the Assassin asked, wiggling one pinky in his ear. Blinking in mild surprise at the color of liquid he dislodged with this action, he elaborated, "Matching my skill against theirs, my genius for inhumation against their habit of life? Their immortality against my _mortality_?"

YOU DO NOT _STAY_ DEAD, Death pointed out. This time, he turned to glare at The Lady.

"All the more reason to treat it like a game!" Teatime answered.

Pivoting yet again, Death stepped up to Teatime and leaned down from a height advantage of a foot and some change to glower at the Assassin. THERE WILL COME A POINT AT WHICH YOU AND I MEET FOR THE LAST TIME. I LOOK FORWARD TO IT. He leaned in a little further, and Teatime merely listened politely. Death continued, BUT UNDERSTAND THIS: THE ONLY GAME HERE IS BETWEEN LUCK AND FATE, AND YOU AND MY GRANDDAUGHTER ARE JUST PIECES IN IT. I AM IMPATIENT FOR THE END.

Titling his head and dripping just a bit, Teatime asked, "What's Susan got to do with this?"

"Go clean up, dear," The Lady interrupted with a somewhat exasperated smile. "The anthropomorphic personifcations are talking." She flicked a hand, and the human disappeared, along with several gallons of ichor. The newly resurrected Dunmanifestin residents wisely opted to wander off to less occupied terraces.

She then smiled a friend's smile at Death. "You don't need to threaten him so. You do have to follow Rules, remember?"

HE DOES NOT KNOW THAT. AND IF YOUR GAME IS GOING IN THE DIRECTION I FEAR IT IS, THEN HE CAN REMAIN IGNORANT OF THAT. FOREVER. Death looked around for Binky, and, spotting him, somehow whistled between his teeth. The horse looked up from cropping divine grass and ambled over. Death mounted and glowered one last time down at The Lady, who gazed back up at him with untroubled green eyes.

NO ONE LIKES TO BE MANIPULATED, LADY. DO _NOT _DO THIS AGAIN.

With a grin, she wiggled her fingers and replied, "Have a nice trip home, dear."

* * *

The smell that met them at the threshold was appalling. And this was the observation of a woman who spent at least twenty percent of her week handling the soiled undergarments of children who'd only been potty trained for only a year or two. The Assassins' School was about fifteen years away from being coeducational and suffered from the absence of all but four adult women. When you stuff a couple hundred males under the age of twenty into close quarters for all but two months of the year, the normal healthy scent (That is, sweat, urine, a few odors it's best not to dwell on, and the ever-popular fart) of young boys and men didn't so much increase as ferment.

"Where's the infirmary? It's the nurses for you, lad," Susan said, squinting in the relative dark of the foyer. Behind them, the heavy oak door swung shut on the sun-bright courtyard.

"I don't need them," the boy answered, wrinkling his nose. It was an expression that Susan did not associate with his older self, and she suddenly felt a bit uncomfortable and, consequently, irritated. She made a quick decision then, to restore some emotional balance. Just to keep herself from tripping on his last name - a sore spot if ever she'd seen one - and to help herself deal with the cognitive dissonance brought about by seeing the child and having killed the man, Susan decided to call the boy Jonathan.

Crossly, _Jonathan _added, "It only itches some, that's all."

In her firmest voice, the one that usually even got adults moving, Susan answered, "Go anyway. The last thing you need is for that thing to get infected." Struck by sudden inspiration, she added, "If you grow too much scar tissue, there won't be any room left for the … eye."

She hesitated because she couldn't tell if it were a proper glass eye - and who made them dark gray all the way through? - or a pretty, polished stone. And she had no idea how he'd gotten it or why. _"Eye" will work for now,_she supposed, consciously shelving her curiosity. Besides, it was perhaps an improvement on the eyes he'd been born with; the one that could loosely be termed normal was almost entirely sclera with just the faintest blue suggestion of an iris, and a pinhole of a pupil. The lid-to-lid grayish black was almost comforting in contrast.

The boy's expression clouded at the idea. "I suppose you're right." His hand went up as though to cover the eye. Susan noticed that he stopped himself with visible effort and self-consciously stuffed the hand into his pocket. Since she'd never witnessed an Assassin, let alone _Teatime_, wounded or otherwise, indulge in fidgeting or purposeless movement, Susan filed the gesture away in her memory and said nothing.

Jonathan turned and led Susan down a brightly lit passage with sixteen-foot-high ceilings. The low murmur of lectures suffered the occasional interruption from the practicals; the twang of crossbows firing competed with the unmistakable scuffling and grunts of hand-to-hand combat. Susan wondered if this is how it sounded outside her own classroom on days she took the class on their Death-assisted and time-defying field trips. If so, no one had mentioned it. _Bless the human ability to ignore whatever doesn't fit expectations_, she thought smugly.

Susan also had wondered about the kind of education one provided at the Assassins' School. It was said to be the 'best' - the wealthy citizens of no fewer than three continents certainly thought so - but Susan hadn't applied for a position because of the nature of the guild. For one thing, she'd see far too much of her grandfather. For another, most of these children were of the peerage and had the attitudes to match, and Susan would buck the good-old-boys' sort of atmosphere by not letting them get away with it.

Once they arrived at the infirmary, having passed door after closed door and a number of oil paintings of fashionable old men and the attendant discreet plaques disclosing who had inhumed them, Susan fell back a step and let the boy push open a set of double doors set with frosted glass panes.

"Good afternoon! I need someone to look at my eye, please," he announced.

In response, one nurse in her late teens gasped and dropped a basket full of herbs; another, this one a hearty, harassed example of the motherly sort who had too much to do and not enough competent help to get it done, whipped around and immediately began scolding.

"Mr. Jonathan," she cried, and Susan noticed that she had made a decision very similar to her own regarding the boy's name, "It's hard enough that you've run off Matron Crumley, but if all you're going to do is go missing, worrying us sick, and with a wound like that, and then pop in here and startle the living daylights out of Nurse Rosings when I've got quite enough to clean up, then I don't know what I'm to do with you!"

Through this harangue, she gestured sharply for the boy to take a seat on an empty cot. She snapped at the teenager, "Nurse Rosings, just get a broom for the comfrey; you can give it rinse again later - then hang it to dry. No sense letting it spoil. For gods' sakes, girl, you'll never make a proper nurse if you can't keep your supplies in hand! And you only encourage the lads if you react like that, silly girl! Get a spine or find a new line of work is what I say!"

The elder nurse's monologue continued in this vein through the entire examination. Jonathan bore it with an exasperated sort of endurance; Susan kept careful watch from the doorway with one hand full of poker and the other poised to snap time into a standstill. However, once the exam was completed with a final harangue, Jonathan merely got up, politely thanked the nurses, and joined Susan in the hall.

As he emerged, he asked, "Why do you have that poker?" Before Susan could formulate a good response, he also asked, "Have you ever inhumed anybody? You said you weren't an Assassin, but you act a lot like one. And you're pretty knacky with that poker. Mr. Mericet wouldn't approve of it - he likes tradition - but you could do some real damage with it. May I see it?"

Accustomed to this sort of flurry of questions - thank you, Jason - Susan replied, "No. Who is Mr. Mericet?" She tightened her grip on the poker. Teatime had gotten one weapon off her already, with nearly disastrous results; she wouldn't put it past the child to manage a similar trick. She regretted her decision to take this along rather than a sword - no, another bad idea - a lacrosse stick, perhaps.

"He's the Strategy and Poison Theory teacher. He's really ancient. You can't get _anything _past him." This last was said with a certain amount of respect.

Before the boy could ask anything else, a cascading, dopplering approach of ringing bells crept in through the open windows. The low drone of lectures grew into the susurrus of restless boys preparing to bolt; the thumps and thunks coming from the practicals classrooms transformed into the sounds of things hurriedly being put away. Finally, far above, rang the bell of the Assassins' Guild - fashionably late, as always.

The halls erupted.

Frout Academy had never had more than 80 students, partly because it was exclusive, partly because many parents were skeptical of Madam Frout's belief in Learning Through Play. Though Susan was quite equal to it, she had never been up to the armpits in prepubescent boys, who were pushed to the edges of the hall while the seventh- and eighth-years plowed right down the center of it, all elbows and spots.

She caused their attention to slide away from her and at the same time took Jonathan by the shoulder and propelled him closer to the wall, out of the crush. Surprised, Jonathan looked up at her, wincing and rubbing at his good eye.

"Oi! Watch where you're going, wanker!"

A boy, maybe 12 at the outside, came awkwardly and unknowingly under Susan's arm and stiffarmed Jonathan against the wall. He sneered at Jonathan down a wide-nostriled, ruddy upturned nose, maintaining the glare even as Jonathan turned his eerie, two-toned gaze on the older boy.

"What're you going to do, eh, charity boy?" the boy asked, the bravado just covering the tremor in his voice. Even if Jonathan couldn't read people - his older self certainly had seemed to have trouble with it - Susan recognized in this older child a small, bullied boy who had finally found someone smaller and, presumably, easier to bully. She waited, as she did with her own students; she preferred they sort things out themselves, because how else would they learn to do it? But she also kept alert for the moment things might get out of hand, and with Jonathan Teatime involved, things might just Get Out of Hand in a big way.

When Jonathan didn't answer - he just glowered at his assailant - the older boy regained his bluster and sneered, "What're you going to do, Creepy? _Look_ at me?" He laughed in that crowing, look-at-me kind of way bullies had; he drew a crowd of onlookers and enjoyed the sudden upwelling of courage that comes with a sympathetic audience. "Huh? Eh, _Tea_time? What're you going to _do?_" He lunged, shoving Jonathan with a force that nearly lifted the smaller boy off his feet.

With an acrobatic grace that Susan witnessed without any surprise, Jonathan didn't so much collide with the wall as dance with it; he tapped off with one foot and wound up somehow behind his attacker. Susan's teacher instincts blared, because this is where things Got Out of Hand.

All in one second, she leaned, slid the poker between the two boys, and swung it up as hard as she could. A dagger cartweeled through the air and lodged itself into the crown molding sixteen feet up. From one side, there was a surprised hiss and from the other a yelp, which was followed with a shrill, "My coat! My back! You _bastard!_"

Jonathan's only reply was an almost mournful, "That's my favorite dagger." He turned to look at Susan, his good eye squinting just a bit. "Why did you do that?"

The crowd - all Ankh-Morporkian but for the three Klatchians and the one extremely swotty Krullian boy, so of course they'd stopped to watch - paused and glanced warily at one another. As one boy, they took a step back. Just audible were a few whispers that all amounted to, "Who is the nutter talking to?"

Susan shook her head at Jonathan and said, "They can't see me."

Jonathan rubbed at the pinhole eye and asked, "Why not?"

More whispers.

"They can't hear me, either, Jonathan, so you'd do best to stop talking to me. I'll explain later."

Before things could attempt to get out of hand again, a stentorian baritone cut through the muttering: "Young gentlemen."

The two words were sufficient to silence the crowd and part it, leaving a ruler-straight aisle between Jonathan and a tall, pleasant-featured man in his mid-forties. His aristocratic features affected surprise at both the gathering and the subject of its attention.

"I believe that's the third bell just gone," he drawled. That slow, bored tone and the waving black hair that was going white at the muttonchops grabbed at Susan's memory and tugged.

Just as recognition dawned on her, the students chimed, "Yes, Mr. Downey," and scattered, leaving two young boys and an invisible schoolteacher to face down the future Master of Assassins. The man gazed down at the pair with one eyebrow raised, his fatherly disapproval hinting at the grandfatherly demeanor he would take on in coming years.

"An Assassin does not draw undue attention to himself if he can help it," Downey intoned. "Even though he is trained to performance standards, his effectiveness as an Assassin is at its height out of the public eye."

Both boys chorused, "Yes, Mr. Downey," but the pug-nosed attacker with a brand new opening in his coat kept going.

"He started it, sir! And he's ruined my coat! And I'm bleeding!"

Downey was able to quell the flow of accusations with a slight uptick in the raised eyebrow. "Mr. Teatime is usually more... forthright in his approach, Mr. Lewis. Besides which, an Assassin will do better to be at someone else's back rather than the opposite." With a dismissive wave, he added, "You have my permission to visit the infirmary. Have the nurses see to your wound if you must. Then you shall meet with me at three o'clock in my study. Thank you."

Thus banished from the instructor's attention, the properly shamed Mr. Lewis scuttled through the double doors behind Susan. She had to sidestep the red-faced little bully to keep him from running into her, and she resisted the temptation to trip him.

"Excuse me, sir." Jonathan's piping, high voice called Downey's attention downward. Politely, he said, "It's pronounced 'Teh-ah-tim-eh', sir. Shall I be punished, sir?"

The expression that crossed the man's face was somewhere between annoyance and discomfort. Everyone seemed to develop the latter expression when faced with Jonathan's two-toned gaze, no matter his age. "Perhaps you missed the first part of my advice, Mr. Teeyatimay," he answered, making a game attempt at Jonathan's surname. "It was intended for you, but you seemed to be inexplicably interested in the empty air. I shall repeat it." Downey took a step forward in order to loom over the boy. ""An Assassin does not draw attention to himself if he can help it. He is at his best without an audience."

"Excuse me, sir, but then why are we to be as stylish as possible, then, sir?"

Downey blinked, unsure if the boy were being cheeky. "An Assassin without style is merely a murderer." He frowned. "Are you disparaging the Dark?"

"Oh, no sir!" Jonathan looked genuinely distressed. "I want it more than anything. It just seems like we would stand out, is all."

Downey loomed just a little more. "It is then your job to be inconspicuous anyway. Now, I don't want to catch you like this ever again, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, off to class with you - no, wait, you still have special dispensation," Downey said, sounding a bit annoyed.

Jonathan brightened, "I'm sure I'm fine, sir."

With another conflicted expression - this time Downey seemed unable to decide between amusement and worried disbelief - Downey shook his head and invoked the name of the current Master of Assassins. "Even Lord Danforth can't countermand the Infirmary. Just... occupy yourself and avoid making trouble in crowds, if you please."

"May I retrieve my dagger?"

"An Assassin must take proper care of the tools of his trade." With that, Downey turned and went back the way he came.

Jonathan looked up at Susan. "Was that a 'yes'?"


End file.
